Toy with a rotating gameboard

ABSTRACT

A game toy having a rotating turntable holding a removable gameboard, the turntable being rotated and thereafter stopped in a precise position, the toy having a trigger operating through a disengageable gear train to effect rotation. The turntable and the base with respect to which it rotates have cooperating magnets on the one hand and a spider on the other hand which stop the turntable in one of a plurality of preselected equiangular positions.

United States Patent Walss, deceased [54] TOY WITH A ROTATING GAMEBOARD [72] Inventor: Walter Kourt Walss, deceased, late of Midway, Ark. by Margaret Walss, executrix [22] Filed: Jan. 20, 1970 [21] Appl. No.: 4,204

US. Cl. ..273/142 JB, 273/142 R, 273/ 136 B, 273/134 G, 273/134 AE, 292/161 [58] Field ofSearch ..273/142 JB, 142 J, 142 R, 136 A, 273/136 B, 136 N, 157 R, 141 R, 141 A,

143 C, 134 A, 134G, 134 GA, 135 A" [56] ReferencesCited UNITED STATES PATENTS Hayden ..273/ 143 C Int. Cl. ..A63f l/l8 51 Aug. 22, 1972 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 194,020 3/1923 Great Britain ..273/143 JB 400,485 10/1933 GreatBritain ..273/143JB Primary Examiner-Richard C. Pinkham Assistant Examiner-Marvin S. Siskind Attorney-Wood, Herron & Evans ABSTRACT A game toy having a rotating turntable holding a removable gameboard, the turntable being rotated and thereafter stopped in a precise position, the toy having a trigger operating through a disengageable gear train to effect rotation. The turntable and the base with respect to which it rotates have cooperating magnets on the one hand and a spider on the other hand which stop the turntable in one of a plurality of preselected equiangular positions.

4 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures PATiNTimuszzmz I I 3,685 831 SHEET 2 OF 2 INVENTOR.

yy 51550704 W%W) M TOY WITH A ROTATING GAMEBOARD This invention relates to a game of the type described in my US. Pat. No. 1,780,256. In that patent I have described apparatus including a base, a turntable rotatable with respect to the base and a transparent plate of glass overlying the turntable. The turntable is adapted to receive garneboards of different types, each corresponding to a specific game adapted to be played with a rotating turntable.

In the playing of the game, pieces having colors corresponding to the participants in the game are set on the glass overlying the gameboard and the gameboard is then rotated. In most instances, the gameboard will stop at a different angular position from that which it had at the time the pieces were set and hence the pieces are in a new relationship with respect to the indicia on the gameboard. The participants then move their pieces in accordance with the rules of the particular game after which the gameboard may be rotated again to present still another angular relation of the gameboard with respect to the pieces.

The differing games have differing moves and objectives, but in all of them, a certain amount of skill is involved and, of course, chance is involved, the factor of chance being interposed by the rotating gameboard.

In the game of my earlierv patent, rotation of the gameboard is effected by a windup spring, rotation being resisted by a ratchet and pawl. Rotation is started by disengaging the pawl from the ratchet and rotation is stopped by releasing the pawl to let it engage the ratchet.

This apparatus has several disadvantages. First, is the requirement of keeping the spring motor wound. Often, the need for winding the spring is only realized during the middle of play when a full rotation was desired but is unable to be achieved. Second, the ratchet and pawl arrangement is rather noisy when the pawl moves into engagement with the ratchet to terminate the rotation. Third, and perhaps critically important, is the fact that the frictional relationship of the pawl with respect to the ratchet frequently causes the gameboard to stop rotating at an angular position other than that which was preselected. This problem has been resolved by pounding on the table or the like to cause the gameboard to rotate a few additional degrees to a proper preselected position.

It has been an objective of the present invention to improve upon the operating mechanism disclosed in my earlier patent. One of these'improvements resides in the mechanism for effecting rotation of the turntable. In accordance with the present invention, I provide a trigger lever operable through a gear train including a disengageable intermediate gear which is slideable and rotatable with respect to the game base. Thus to effect rotation requires only a flick of the trigger lever. The force of that motion is transmitted to a gear coaxial with the turntable through the intermediate gear, but the intermediate gear is automatically released from engagement with the coaxial gear by the rotary motion of the turntable.

Another improvement provided by the present invention resides in the provision of a quiet and reliable means for efl'ecting the stopping of the turntable and gameboard precisely in one of its preselected angular positions. This improvement is achieved through the use of cooperating magnets and a spider having radially projecting arms, the magnets being attracted to the spider arms to stop the rotation of the turntable and in the preselected position.

Another objective of the invention has been to provide a case for the game described above wherein the trigger lever also functions as an unlatching mechanism to permit a change of the gameboard.

It has been another objective of the invention to provide a mechanism for reliably holding a gameboard in proper position of the rotating turntable.

The several features and objectives of the invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a top plan view of the apparatus of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the gameboard showing it having been rotated a few degrees from its position of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a disassembled perspective view of the gameboard apparatus;

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the rotating and stopping mechanism;

FIG. 5 is a plan view similar to FIG. 4 with the spider and magnets removed illustrating the rotation and parting mechanism;

FIG. 6 is a view similar to FIG. 5 at a different stage of the operation; and v FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view taken along lines 7 7 of FIG. 4

The game to which the present invention is directed is illustrated in plan view in FIGS. 1 and 2. The apparatus shown at 10 includes a rectangular housing or casing 11 having a transparent top wall 12. Visible through the top wall is a gameboard 13, which is secured to a turntable 14. A trigger lever 15 projecting from the side of the casing is used to rotate the tumtable. Pieces having different colors associated with the different players in the game, are indicated at 16 and In the play of the game, the pieces are positioned at locations usually selected by the players. One of the The general organization admits of a wide variety of I games. All of the games, however, are dependent upon the rotation of the gameboard followed by its stopping precisely at one of a number of preselected angular positions. Further, the enjoyment of the game is enhanced if the gameboard can be rotated relatively silently. It is to these features that the present invention is primarily directed.

Turning now to the more specific details of the game, as illustrated in FIG. 3, the casing for the gameboard includes a bottom section 20 to which an upper section 21 which includes the transparent top 12 is hinged as at 22. The hinging of the top section to the bottom section shown in FIG. 1 and in the leftmost position, are adapted tobe clear of the lugs as shown in FIG. 2 to enable the upper sectionto be swung open with respect .to the lower section. The slide bar 27 v has abutments 30 which are adapted to be engaged by the trigger lever 15 I the game casing to be opened and the The mechanism by which the 'tumtable is rotated is best illustrated in FIGS. 4, Sand 6. The stub shaft 33 has a main gear 60 fixed to it, the main gear having teeth which are engageable by the teeth of an intermediate moveable gear 61. The moveable gear 61 has a shaft 62 which is mounted ina bearing slot 63 which permits the gear toslide, thus changing the'lateral posito shift the slide bar in either direction to open and close the casing. g

Instead of forming the casing as two hinged sections, the casing can be formed as an integral unit having a removable transparent top which permits access to the turntable for gameboard changes.

- The turntable 14, has-at its center, a depending stub shaft 33 having a central bore 34 which is adapted to be slideably and rotatably mounted on a pin 35 projecting vertically upwardly from the bottom wall 26 The depth of the bore 34 is so related to the height ofthe pin 35 so asto support the turntable 14 above the bottom wall 26 a distance sufficient to permit its free rotation.

At each end, the turntable has gameboard grippers 40 having T-shaped extensions 41 slideably mounted in blocks,42. Each has a spring-43 connected at one end 44 to theslide block and at theother end 45 to'the The gripper itself isindicated at 46 and is channel shaped having an upperflange 47 and a positioning arrow 48 adapted to overlie the gameboard and clamp it to the turntable. The gameboards are preferably notched or have other indicia at diametri cally opposed locations which are alignable with the arrows 48 to provide assurance that the gameboard will be gripped in a proper balanced or centered position with respecttothe turntable. The turntable includes three barmagnets 50 which are equiangularly spaced about the stub shaft 33. The bar magnets cooperate with a spider- 51 which is mounted on posts-52 fixed to the bottom wall 26. The bar magnets are tangentially oriented from north to south pole and, as illustrated in FIG. 4, are spaced outwardly from the stub shaft radially a distance to permit their ends 53 to overlie two adjacent spider arms 54 when the tumtableis stopped. This orientation pro-- vides a complete path for the magnetic field which extends from one pole through an arm 54 into the hub 55 of the s'pideroutthe adjacent arm to the other pole of the magnet, and further, provides absolute assurance that the turntable, supporting the magnets, will stop only at those places wherein the bar'magnets have their poles overlying adjacent arms of the spider. The spider in the illustrated embodiment has twelve arms and as a consequence, the turntable has twelve stopping places. It should, of course, be understood that the number of stopping places can, ofcourse, be varied without detion of the axis of the gear.

The trigger lever 15 is pivoted at to the bottom of Q the casing and has an end'portion 66 projecting-toward the main and intermediate gear..'The trigger lever has an arcuate rack 67 at its end which :has teeth 68' adapted to engage, the teeth of A spring 70'is connected at one end 71 to the trigger lever 15 and at the other end 72 to a post 73 on the bottom of the, gameboard. Thespring returns the trigger lever to its starting position after it has been actuated.

Two stops, 74 and 75 are mounted on the bottom of the g I gameboard to limit the angular distance through which the trigger lever 15 moves.

In operation of the game, a gameboardis selected and placed on the turntable with its edges being gripped by the grippers 40 and aligne'd with the arrows 48 so as to align its diameter with the diameter of the} a I turntable and to avoid an unbalance. The casing is closed and the-players place their pieces on the transparent cover in positions as indicated by the particular game thatisbeing played. I

A selected player then operates the trigger lever 15 one or more times. Upon pivoting the trigger lever 15, the rack teeth '68 engage-the teeth of the intermediate gear and apply a tangential force to the teeth attending 2 both to rotate the intermediate gear and 'to move it toward the main gear 60 until its teeth mesh with the teeth of the main gear. At this point, there is a gearthat gear transmission, to rotate. At'the endof the strokeof the trigger lever 15, and as illustrated in FIG;

6, the main gear 60 continues torotate and in so doing- I rotates theintermediate gear which is in mesh with the rack 68 a few degrees. That few degrees causes the in- 1 termediate'gear to roll away from the main gear after and gradually brings the tumtable to a halt. As indicated above,'the turntable will 'stop at precisely that position in which the bar magnets have their pole ends overlying adjacentarrm54of the spider.

After the gameboard has stopped and the player's pieces overlie different'portions of the game, new moves are made. in accordance with the rules of the particular game, and perhaps additional rotations of the gameboard are made. I

What is claimed is: g g 1. In a game having a turntable rotatably mounted apparatus with respect'toa base for reliably stopping partingfrom the scope and spirit of the invention. The 65 'relative positions of the magnets and spider could be reversed but the illustrated orientation is preferred for itkeeps the heavier spider in a fixed position.

lar-positions comprising,

said .tumtable at one of a plurality of preselected .ang I a spider having eqriiangular radially projecting arms,- i

i to one of said turntable andsaid spider being fixed base,

the intermediate gear of said magnets are equiangularly spaced with respect to the axis of rotation of said gameboard,

3. A game according to claim 1 in which said spider has twelve arms and three magnets are equiangularly spaced with respect to the axis of rotation of said gameboard.

4. A game according to claim 3 in which said magnets are mounted on said turntable and said spider is fixed to said base. 

1. In a game having a turntable rotatably mounted apparatus with respect to a base for reliably stopping said turntable at one of a plurality of preselected angular positions comprising, a spider having equiangular radially projecting arms, said spider being fixed to one of said turntable and base, at least one magnet, said magnet being fixed to the other of said turntable and base and adjacent said spider whereby said spider passes through the field of said magnet, said magnet being a permanent bar magnet lying generally tangential to the path of movement of said turntable, the respective ends of said magnet lying adjacent respective adjacent arms of said spider when said turntable is at rest.
 2. A game according to claim 1 in which a plurality of said magnets are equiangularly spaced with respect to the axis of rotation of said gameboard.
 3. A game according to claim 1 in which said spider has twelve arms and three magnets are equiangularly spaced with respect to the axis of rotation of said gameboard.
 4. A game according to claim 3 in which said magnets are mounted on said turntable and said spider is fixed to said base. 